Michael W.
Bread Cashback American Express Credit Card
Bread Financial is perhaps the worst credit card company. Aside from the predatory APR everything else seemed fine until I paid my CC statement online 8 days early on December 20th. I learned their processing system is slow and unreliable. My payment was returned because of a 0, a zero at the beginning of my checking account #. I simply entered my routing and checking acct # the way they prompted me to on-screen, which is the same way it shows on my checkbook. They were basically asking for the zero. In reality the automated system ended up rejecting the payment because of it. I never before encountered this problem with other payment accounts. I wasn’t even notified of the returned payment, but instead after 8 days passed I received a notation at the top of the app screen stating something was wrong with my checking account. Still no indication from them that my payment was rejected. I looked at my bank account and seen there wasn’t a debit made so I assumed the payment was rejected. This was all discovered on the due date. I was able to correct the info on file by removing the 0, and I made the payment again, on time, not late. On December 30th I received a returned payment charge, a penalty of $30. Oh well. Come January 3rd I notice my account is frozen. I must’ve called customer service 5 times about this. One lady assured me the account would be unfrozen on Jan 4th. Obviously that never came to be. I call again and they’re telling me I have to make 3 monthly payments, has to be once per month, and my account will be unfrozen sometime in the end of March. They told me another option would be if I paid my entire balance off they would unfreeze my account. A statement for January is already available, and my new monthly minimum payment amount has more than doubled! This feels like entrapment, a kind of scam. The sad reality is this was my only remaining line of credit and I needed it for survival until I gain new employment. Customer service speaks broken English and they don’t seem to care about the specifics of the situation. They respond like robots from India. I asked for a supervisor and it was all just more of the same. I hear American Express is decent and their customer service is good too, but this company here is renting the AMEX name and not at all providing quality customer care. The severity of my financial situation has me so depressed and worried. I did nothing wrong to deserve having my account frozen for 3 months. I’m just trying to get by, and this company took away my lifeline because of a typographical discrepancy from their automated system. Something that I corrected and was still able to pay the bill on time. Yet this company adds injury to insult. I say it’s a scam because the online image example they provide clearly instructed me to enter the entire account number from my checkbook, including the empty zero at the beginning. It’s blatantly obvious what has happened here and yet customer “care” are cold and dismissive.